


Big Brother

by eurosthewanderer



Series: The Family From The Cupboard [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Harry Potter is a Horcrux, Oh My God, Under the Influence of Horcruxes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 17:34:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13769088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurosthewanderer/pseuds/eurosthewanderer
Summary: Dudley Dursley likes to think he's good big brother.Six examples that support this belief.





	Big Brother

“Wicked, Big D!” Harry says from over the tripod.  

 

It's as tall as he is, Dudley thinks, smiling. 

 

Harry grins back, a little crooked but slow. Dudley has always liked Harry's grin, he can't remember a time he didn't. Right now the grin is for his hat. With his new staff bumping against his crimson covered knees as he’s finally managed to keep his straw hat twirling on the tip for more than a minute. 

 

 His “smelting stick,” as Dad calls it and continually nags him to, saying it builds proper character. 

 

Hit Harry with it, that is.

 

And it’s normal at Smelting’s, too. Smacking other boys down onto the asphalt of the grounds or the wood of the dormitory halls was apparently the favorite pass time of Dudley’s new home. It’s the reason the boys were made to leave their staffs in the hallway from Dad’s seventh year on but, hopefully, the new headmaster’s had the good sense to do away with that nonsense.  

Or so Dad says.

It's a _hallowed place,_ being the third generation of Dursley men to learn under it's big red bricks. The third-that's all he is-to go under the big wrought iron gate that stood over those steps.

 

It's the only thing that he could draw other than faces.

 

With it’s marble keystone resting between the golden _Caveat_ and _Smeltonia_ that surely glinted to bright enough to take away his vision.

 

He’s seen Dad’s old pictures.

 

 _Caveat Smeltonia_ written by the sun, Dudley thinks as he flicks his golden straw hat, with its red flare of a ribbon, up on the 235th spin and catches it on the tip of his staff at the 237th spin.

 

Mum’s pride. 

 

“Are you a clown Dudley?” Dad grumps, adjusting his tie for the umpteenth time. 

 

“It’s for my coor-din-ation!” Dudley drops the hat into his palm and uses it to bat Mum’s hands away. “So I can block if someone tries to send me tumbling like you used to do to Scottish Billy!” 

 

Dad starts to splutter as Dudley goes to dive behind Harry, whose just finishing up with the camera.    

 

Dudley is jealous of Harry. Has been for as long as he can remember. 

 

Mum never pinches his cheeks and he gets to take all the pictures, and he doesn’t have to go off to some school where they button the bottom of their pants. Harry gets to carry the camera at every party and whenever they go out while Dudley gets to spend all his secondary level in garters.

 

And Harry gets the nice, heavy Nikon camera with all it’s glossy buttons.

 

Harry gets to take picture after picture of him while Dudley can’t even print the few he’s taken of Harry. He doesn’t think it’s fair. 

 

Dudley doesn’t even get to touch the camera and Mum _still_ hadn’t developed the ones he took before his plastic camera broke. 

 

Not a _single_ one of them. 

 

Mum never took Harry to the studio, either, so there’s no portraits with Harry. 

 

Dudley counts forty-seven pictures of him and eight portraits in the living room alone as Mum changes from her purple apron into the peach one with frills that looks like the time Pier's mum's cat puked up ice cream cake.   

 

Thirty pictures with him and Mum and Dad or Aunt Marge. 

 

His favorite one is the one with Piers and Mrs. Polkiss. 

 

There's now thirty- _one_ of him with Mum and Dad. 

 

But Harry’s smiling, slow and crooked. 

 

It makes Dudley's eyes go bright, Dad's paw weighing down his shoulder.

 

He supposes this is what it must feel like to have a younger brother.

 

He likes to think he's a good big brother.

* * *

Dudley gets bored quickly, moving off to the new and shiny before's even broken most things.  

 

He hasn't figured out how to break Harry yet.  

 

Mark was something new, with his wet eyes and high screams but he doesn’t teach him games like Harry does or hit back like Morag so Dudley gave up on him.

 

And Mrs. Lyssa yells at them when he chases Mark. 

 

So Dudley goes back to chasing Harry and learns to play checkers with rocks and bits of chalk during recess. 

 

He figured out how to beat Harry only once. 

 

At home they get to play with different colored legos; grey for Dudley and green for Harry.

 

To match their eyes.

 

Saturday’s rolled around and he’s is getting better and better at checkers. He’s won almost half of the games when Mum gets back with the shopping. 

 

“Dudders!” She calls from the front door, arms laden with bags. Dudley races to the door with Harry on his heels, eager to see what treat Mum’s gotten at the store. 

 

“Take these and put them away,” Mum drops the bags to the floor before clutching him to her chest, “And don’t break anything.”

 

“My Ickle Dudleykins!” She pecks each of his cheeks, before pulling back to pet at his hair and nuzzle his nose, “I’ve brought you a present! Would you like to see?”

 

Dudley nods eagerly, hoping for another man-sized lollipop.

 

It had lasted him all afternoon and Dad had said it would help him grow big and strong. Harry had said that it was an “insult to walruses” and then refused to explain. Dudley had looked up walruses on Monday but still didn’t know what Harry meant. 

 

He’d find out this time for certain.   

 

Instead a wrapped box was pulled from Mum’s big bag and held out to him. The wrapping is a blue and orange clash with bright white bow.

He snatched it from his mum’s hands feeling a sob build in his throat as he gave it a shake. The rattling from within his package told him it was certainly not a _big, proper, man-sized lollipop_.

 

Dudley began to bawl.

 

Dropping his present onto the ground, Dudley lowered his head and rams himself into his mother’s abdomen shrieking.

* * *

When Dudley asks Aunt Petunia what Harry's birthday is she sniffs, "The 31st of the July, you shouldn't ask so many questions, Dudders."

 

Dudley doesn't smile when she kisses him.

 

He wonder's if it's that four year day their teacher was telling them about and that's why Harry never gets cake.

 

They'll get to celebrate it this year though, Dudley thinks, drawing stick figures on his poster board surrounded by his new lego kit on the living room floor. Harry will get  _four years_ worth of presents. He'll get bikes and video games and so many lego's that they'll never be bored again on the weekends when Mum won't take them to the park. 

 

Harry's gluing the letters for "Mummy" and "Daddy" above Dudley's drawings. 

 

Aunt Petunia looks like the Queen Guinevere in his worn bedtime book. 

 

Daddy is Daddy on the poster board and on the coach watching the telly over the two boys. He looks nothing like Arthur or Lancelot or any of the Knights of the Round Table but that's because he's a _Director_ not a Knight.  

 

Dudley draws Harry's glasses with his on the poster and his eyes are blue but when they’re almost done Vernon gets up and leaves to drink a night cap. After the gluing is done and the markers almost put away Dudley writes in Lily and James above Harry’s name. 

 

As they put the crayons back into their box, Dudley hears Harry ask. 

 

"Who was your favorite character?"

 

"Guinevere. Cause Mum likes her the best!" He chirps back. “Which do you like?”

 

Harry drops the box of crayons.

* * *

He likes it, the motion, around and around and around with warm water and tickling bubbles. It reminds him of hopscotch and skating rocks in puddles and Harry's face under Dudley's fist.

 

His forearms are sunk into the warm water. He watches the soap catch on the pail hair of his forearms, shivering along with breaking bubbles as he pulls his arms from the water. The dish is still warm under his wrinkly palms.

 

He trails the bumps of his soft finger over the hard angles of the china as it's snatched from his grasp.      

 

Harry's standing on the counter. "Ta, Big D."

 

"What about the glasses?" Dudley picks one up.

 

He decides he likes how they feel in his clenched fist, cold and sharp with their skyscrapers. 

 

"Nah, they're heirlooms" Harry hops down. "Aunt Petunia does them herself."

 

Dudley flexes his hand around the glass, feeling the smooth glass dig into his bones.

 

Harry plops onto the floor to tug his shoes on. There's a fading bruise on his ear. 

 

The door bell rings and Dudley dumps the crystal glass back into the sink. 

 

There are skyscrapers etched into his palm soft palm.

* * *

Dudley wakes up to the most terrifying sound he has ever heard. Dudley wrenches himself out of bed, scrambling across the room as silence settles in.  

 

Panting from exertion he stumbles out into the hallway and up to Harry's door.    

 

"Mum!" Dudley shouts out, throwing it open. "There's something wrong with Harry!" 

 

He sprints into his brother's room and rushes toward him. 

 

"Mum!" he gasps out.

 

Harry's muttering to himself, whispering nonsense words.

 

"Dudley?!!" He hears his Mum's voice from the hallway.

 

Harry's body jerks off the bed and he's breathing changes to almost a hiss.

 

"Mum?!!!" Dudley shrieks as his mother appears in the doorway. "He's not breaking!"

* * *

Dudley thought it was the funniest thing. 

 

A crank invitation sent over one hundred times. 

 

To a school of magic none the less.

 

He nudges Harry, as Mum begins to fiddle with the radio. 

 

"I got one." He whispers to his little brother. "One of the gag gifts."

 

Harry's face looks hilarious, green eyes wide behind his glasses as Dudley tugs the paper out from beneath his shirt. 

 

"Wanna see?"

 

Harry grins back, slow and crooked.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> First Upload! 
> 
> There are going to be three main points of view in this series with features from three other characters in the final work. I should have the other two main POV's up within the next three weeks. 
> 
> But Dudley was the easiest POV to write and so he's getting uploaded first. He's also got the least going on but I hope you enjoy regardless. 
> 
> Comments are my life's blood. 
> 
> I am looking for a beta so feel free to hit me up if you see anything wrong. 
> 
> All mistakes are mine.
> 
> If I was making money off this JK Rowling would be suing me. 
> 
> Come shout at me on Tumblr: eurosthewanderer.tumblr.com


End file.
